The Apollo 8 astronauts performed lunar orbit insertion #OTD in 1968.
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the moon, the first to see an earthrise, fifty three years ago today.
Anders spotted the Earth coming up over the Moon’s horizon:
"Oh my God, look at that picture over there! It's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!"
Image: NASA
@RoyBrander
"The true camera image is upside-down by earthly standards, showing the South Pole at the top of the globe, because the camera was held by a weightless man who didn't know down from up. Most reproductions invert it to align with our expectations."
This makes me wonder if anyone has written a post-colonial critique of astronomical coordinates, I've never seen their global north perspective as starkly underlined as in the phrase "invert it to align with our expectations."
@mcnees